Number the Stars
by TalesofErynGalen
Summary: Deceiving hobbits was as difficult as counting the stars, but Bilbo Baggins managed it. His cousin Primrose lived as Frodo Baggins for her entire life, and it takes a quest to destroy a cursed ring to unravel her true identity, and all that comes with it. Sam/fem!Frodo
**_Hey everyone. Long time, no see. For anyone wondering why I've been gone so long - I made a_** **a frankly amazing friend sometime around December in 2014. I wrote less and less because I didn't have the time or drive. However, aforementioned "friend" has become a hateful gollum-creature, and I'm ready to get back in the fanfiction saddle with this little pet project. Please leave your thoughts. They'll help the story along.**

 _Chapter One:_

" _Bilbo Baggins!_ You can't hide in there forever, and you know it!" The bell beside the pristine green door rang out harshly as Lobelia shook its chain furiously, seemingly under the impression that this would bring her estranged cousin back from his home. Her expression was thunderous and indignant as she stamped to the small window next to the door, peering inside. There was a small flash of color as Bilbo whisked out of sight around the corner, most likely scuttling off to his study or his kitchen - both had become familiar haunts for the old bachelor since he returned from his mysterious adventure nearly four and twenty years before.

"Bilbo _Baggins!_ You listen to me! You have no heir. Now, if you don't want to identify an heir from your relatives-" meaning the Sackville-Bagginses, "then I would be _delighted_ to arrange a marriage. My sister-in-law, Petunia-"

" _Go - away!_ " Bilbo called forcefully from within Bag End, and though Lobelia couldn't see him, he brandished the pipe he'd just retrieved in anger. The seventy-five year old hobbit (though he certainly didn't look it) scowled and stomped down the hall to the back door, wrenching the plain brown door open and sat down on the old bench beneath the window.

In the front yard, Lobelia glared at the door for a moment longer before reluctantly turning to leave, not bothering to latch the gate behind her. Maybe one of his _dwarves_ would be along later to blame it on. She wouldn't know that there hadn't been a dwarf in Bag End for over ten years until she brought it up some time later.

Bilbo, for one, was growing exponentially tired of his relatives - not only Lobelia, but nearly every other family member who could still stand his presence after his _adventure -_ hanging on the bell day and night, hammering on him about his reluctance to marry or so much as choose an existing heir. Maybe he should actually listen to his uncle the next time he showed up, always on Monday just after second breakfast. The elder hobbit always seemed to have a list of hobbit maids who would be "a good match" for him.

Or he could bypass the trouble of taking a wife altogether. To be honest, most of the maids he'd met were far too weak and fragile. A year on the road with dwarves had changed what he looked for. He chuckled as a sudden thought washed over him. What if he threw them all a curve and went searching for a wife in the Blue Mountains? Oh, how Lobelia would sputter. A _half-dwarven_ Baggins taking what she saw as _her birthright._

 _But still..._

Bilbo found he didn't quite like the idea of sharing his home with either a dwarf or a hobbit. Both would want an enormous family, and he wasn't terribly fond of children, at least in large groups. Maybe he really should just name someone else his heir...? There was always his cousin, Drogo, one of his favorites, if not his _absolute_ favorite. The lad was set to marry Primula Brandybuck in a little over a year, if he wasn't mistaken, and leaving Bag End to _them_ would upset Lobelia almost as much as a dwarf...yes, that was what he would do. He would put them in his forming will the next day, at the town hall.

Bilbo smiled gently, with a bit of familial pride, as Drogo managed to drag him into the bedroom in Brandy Hall where Primula had given birth. The newborn had a slight fuzz of black hair, and startlingly blue eyes that darted around quickly, curiously.

She really was a beautiful child, even if she had Drogo's face more than Primula's. And Yavanna knows where the blue eyes came from, as both parents had brown, much like Bilbo.

"She's...amazing, I-I mean, she'll be just...beautiful when she grows up." Bilbo carefully approached Primula's bed, flinching in surprise when the little girl was held out to him, swaddled in her little cream-colored blanket.

"N-no, I can't, I'll drop her or hurt her or-" Primula cut him off with a glare. Her light brown hair was tousled and sweat-soaked, adding to her exhausted intimidation.

"She is your second cousin, Bilbo Baggins, and you are going to bond with her even if it kills you." Under the young hobbit lass' hard stare, Bilbo found it impossible to refuse. Carefully, like he was handling a fragile glass plate, he took the fauntling from her mother and cradled her close, looking into the child's eyes. So blue, and they brought on a strong sense of nostalgia. This little one would hopefully have more sense than the late King Under the Mountain.

Before he really registered the tiny life he held, he was asking, "What are you going to name her?" Drogo suddenly looked lost, pursing his lips and furrowing his brow in thought. This had apparently not been thought through beforehand. Primula looked confused for a split second, and then grinned. Drogo glanced warily at her, and then smiled the same.

" _Primrose,"_ they chimed in unison, Drogo reaching across to gently brush his fingers over Primrose's head. The baby made a gurgling sound, what it was supposed to mean Bilbo was at a loss for, but Primula seemed to know exactly what it was.

"Give her here. She's hungry." She took Primrose back and started to unbutton the top of her gown. Faster than lightning, Bilbo (followed closely by Drogo) flew out of the room and into the long, low-ceilinged hallway, the former beet-red and the latter laughing his head off.

"Twelve times a day, she'll do that! By Yavanna, cousin, I hope you're around as often as I think you will! I'll need a good laugh."

The twin gravestones stared at Bilbo almost in accusation. The old hobbit felt tears stream down his face as he fell to his knees in front of them. Only a week. He had gone on a brief visit to the Blue Mountains, hearing of a trade envoy from Erebor, and when he returned...

 _Primula Brandybuck née Baggins_

 _Drogo Baggins_

The carved names screamed at Bilbo, tearing his heart in two. Why had he gone? The envoy would have been there a good while longer, would probably have passed through Hobbiton, seeing as Bofur was among them and would have wanted to see his friend. And in the brief week he'd been absent, Drogo and Primula had drowned, leaving little Primrose all on her own in the vastness of Brandy Hall. As if that wasn't a blow enough, he had found out about their terrible fate when he ran looking for them after finding a letter from Primula in his mailbox.

That letter had happily announced the lass' second pregnancy. They had been hoping for a boy. They would have named him Frodo, after Drogo. Bilbo felt like laying down alongside the stones and dying as he thought of the third, unrecognized life that had been lost. And again at Primrose's misfortune. He tried to fight down the tears as he looked at his cousins' graves. An idea was taking root in his mind.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there to...at least try and save you and Frodo. But I can promise... _promise_ you, that Primrose will have the best life possible. I'll make her my heir. She'll inherit Bag End when I'm gone, and all my things. She won't want for a single thing in her life."

There were two problems with this, however. One was that he didn't seem to be aging, even at seventy-five, and the other...

He couldn't make a female his heir. But in his mind, he already had a plan to pull a fast one on all of his family. One way or another, Primula and Drogo's daughter was going to inherit Bag End.

Primrose watched curiously, in a detached sort of way, as Bilbo spoke quietly with the not-quite-elderly hobbit that kept the all-important records of family history. The silver-haired hobbit kept shaking his head, looking personally offended by what Bilbo was saying - though, really, she supposed that with _Hobbiton_ hobbits you could barely sneeze without offending someone - but the Baggins patriarch kept adding little silver coins to the pile on the table between them. The breaking point was when he pulled out three golden coins and laid them on the wood surreptitiously. The record keeper glanced about warily, checking for any other eyes on him than Bilbo's and Primrose's, and then snatched all the coins up and bustled away.

Prim didn't quite know what was happening, but she knew enough to recognize that the shirt and breeches she was handed were _not_ her normal attire. She squirmed uncomfortably as Bilbo cut her hair short, as short as a _boy's,_ later that day in the back garden of Bag End. She felt close to tears as she tried to learn how to dress in her new clothes, the ties of the vest twisting around her little fingers before her cousin intervened and the buttons on the short breeches proving to be too much compared to her simple frocks she'd worn before being adopted by "Uncle" Bilbo.

"It'll be okay, Prim. You'll...I'm sure you'll get used to them eventually." Bilbo tried to sound reassuring as he helped his cousin tuck her shirt under her belt. It was remarkable how much she resembled a young Drogo, dressed like this. The only differences he could spot were her startling blue eyes and Primula's nose. "But there's, uh, one more thing you have to remember."

Primrose looked up at him questioningly, eyes shining with distress. Bilbo frowned, wishing there was a way to get around this, but the farce had to be airtight. "Prim, from now on, you have to go by _Frodo._ Okay?"

"...why?" Her high voice was confused and hurt, not to mention quiet and slightly scratchy from disuse after her parents' deaths.

"Well...one day, I want you to own my house and all my belongings, but some people would stop me if they knew you were a girl. You have to go by Frodo and dress like this so that they don't know." Bilbo smiled encouragingly, putting a hand on Prim's thick, curly hair. She blinked, shocked, and then reluctantly agreed.

Bilbo, now aged nearly one hundred, a staggering age and he didn't even look a day over fifty, had a new dilemma to face with his heir. So happy and smug had he been to successfully pull off the farce for eighteen years, he hadn't even thought of what would happen when Prim began to show some... _feminine_ traits. She knew she was a girl - Bilbo had gone over it time and time again, along with why she had to wear boy's clothes and keep her hair short - and that led to numerous crushes on various hobbit lads and barely managing to hide her more girly side. And not to mention - he shuddered to think of the most recent development - _puberty._

Primrose was none too happy when Uncle Bilbo handed her the five-foot strip of linen, explaining that she had to wrap it tightly around her entire torso, shoulders to hips. She scowled the entire time she worked, yanking the sturdy cloth as tightly as she could without injuring herself. For the rest of the day, she moved oddly, not used to the constricting feeling that seemed to crush her hip bones and ribs inward. But the illusion remained intact.

Prim glared accusingly at Gandalf, looking unnervingly like her mother even with her hair cropped shortish. "You're _late!"_


End file.
